Although I don't really care about all this, you have to realize that this time WAS the "next iteration." They succeeded! It's just that the price, and the DxO score now, leaves some scratching their heads.. . . Do people honestly think that Canon did not think that Nikon would come out with a monster camera?? and casue Canon to think, "ah no worries . . . we will do the jaw dropping thing for a future release. btw, DxO?"

By definition this was the previous iteration. The next iteration will be the next generation of cameras and sensors. An then a new iteration after that and so on and so on. Just like cell phones, computers, TVs etc etc.

...I say Hooray for Nikon. I applaud their technical achievement. Assume the that D800 sensor really is better...So what. I prefer the system I have and I am certainly not going to replace all of my glass. Given that the 5DMkIII is an excellent camera, what does the DXOMark score really mean to me? ... It means that Canon is going to pull out all of the stops and give us something really jaw dropping for the next iteration. When you are number one its easy to become a bit complacent. As such, the D800 may well be the best news long time Canon shooters have had for a long time.

Exactly.

We the camera buyers should be very pleased that we have at least 2 giants fighting for market share. It means they stay on their toes and push R&D (and marketing) all the harder to try and trump each other next time.

Both are of course already working on coming generations - this is a long-term business.

...I say Hooray for Nikon. I applaud their technical achievement. Assume the that D800 sensor really is better...So what. I prefer the system I have and I am certainly not going to replace all of my glass. Given that the 5DMkIII is an excellent camera, what does the DXOMark score really mean to me? ... It means that Canon is going to pull out all of the stops and give us something really jaw dropping for the next iteration. When you are number one its easy to become a bit complacent. As such, the D800 may well be the best news long time Canon shooters have had for a long time.

Exactly.

We the camera buyers should be very pleased that we have at least 2 giants fighting for market share. It means they stay on their toes and push R&D (and marketing) all the harder to try and trump each other next time.

Both are of course already working on coming generations - this is a long-term business.

Both are of course already working on coming generations - this is a long-term business.

I do genuinely wonder if this is really the case. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turned out that development of the next 5D doesn't start for another year or two, given that it was 4 years between the Mark II and Mark III. There's clearly *not* 4 years of technological improvement in the Mark III, perhaps with the exception of the DIGIC processor, but this has been gradually developed and improved across the full range of Canon SLRs during this time period.

My conspiracy theory:I wonder if DxO is purposely picking the 8MP downsize option to boost Nikon scores. All nikon cameras that receive great scores have all had multiples of 8MP as the sensor output resolution. The 16MP D7000, 16MP D4, and 36MP D800. Since the DR calculation that Dxo uses is not based solely on the ratio of light to dark but only those values where a signal to noise ratio is below 0dB. I wonder if by perfectly dividing those numbers they are able to achieve a lower noise floor in the shadows enabling larger dynamic range numbers on paper. Notice the random Pentax K5 extremely awesome DR rating also contains a 16MP sensor. I also find it interesting that the $800 16MP Nikon D5100 has an equal DR to the Phase One...hmmmmmm. The Sony NEX-7 with its 24MP sensor (multiple of and the 24MP D3x and 24MP Sony A580 also have top spots to both $40,000 medium format cameras known their dynamic range and all Canon bodies.

I heard a rumor that Nikon is going to rebrand it's entire family of cameras as the "Amazon" series.

The D800 is reportedly going to be rebranded as the DxO-95.

Nikon has also reportedly updated their firmware to first display a side by side comparison of the 5D3 and (formerly) D800 DxO marks for ten seconds before reviewing the photo. Owners have apparently demanded this feature as a reassurance that their photo does indeed look good before actually reviewing the photo.

Also, the rebranded version of the new Amazon series are reported to now have red bodies with a black stripe instead of black bodies with a red strip. A Nikon spokesperson who would only speak on the condition of anonymity expressed that Nikon customers have historically been intimidated by the red stripe on competitors lenses and felt the red stripe on the (formerly) D800 was a good first step, but simply did not go far enough.

I guess I would call that making existing DR (in these cases, in the shadows) more usable, where as before downsampling it may be less usable. It can't increase DR beyond the capabilities of the hardware, however, regardless of how you work the math.

The DR the camera can capture/record is (partially) hard limited by the ADC, yes?

In other words, an 8-bit ADC would necessarily limit your DR to 8EV? Want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. For example, if full-well capacity is 65,536e-, & you use a gain of 256e-/ADU, but now your blacks are crushed even if the read noise of your sensor is, say, 30e-. Even though your sensor may be differentiating blacks, a lot of blacks will be binned to an ADU of 1, correct?

If so, then, yes I totally see your point.

That would indeed be exactly correct.

Canon also uses a bias offset in each frame. The exact nature of it and exactly how it is used by a RAW processor is not fully known to me, but at the very least it sets a black point, allowing the total ADU range to span from -2048 to whatever maximumSaturation-2048 is. I don't know how that might affect results if you simply subtract 2048 from the original maximum saturation...to me, it sounds like you might be knocking off 2048 discrete levels of potential shadow luminance, since only the maximum saturation and stdev of noise is involved in DR calculations.

I'm not sure if a simpler strait forward equation like what LTRLI uses is indicative of real-world downsampling, either.

I wasn't talking about a downsampling equation... I don't remember LTRLI ever providing one. I was talking about his calculation of DR:

DR = log(base 2)[max pixel value in white file/read noise in ADU]

I understand that's a general way of determining PDR, but my issue, which I raised a number of times before, is that to relate this calculation to the DR the camera is capable of recording requires a number of assumptions that I do not know are valid! I even provided a thought experiment that, if implemented into the signal processing pipeline, would make Nikon appear to have greater dynamic range even though it may not (basically: if you bin certain low signals to 0, rather than allow both positive & negative variation around a black point of, like 2048, you can reduce the stdev of pixels in a resultant black frame).

Right, sorry. I know LTRLI's formula is not a downsampling formula, what I was trying to say is I don't think it takes into account the realities of downsampling properly. To put it another way, I think it produces a result without context, which is why it seems to produce much higher numbers for DR than would seem realistic when computing DR for a downsampled image. In its own right, taken at face value (without any context) its certainly not an invalid formula...but do the results produced by it have real-world applicability? Do they represent something real, or is the formula too simplistic? I used to believe that DxO's Print DR numbers, which are derived the same way, were simply demonstrating that once you eliminate noise, you are then realizing the sensors full potential. Kind of tough to keep believing that, though, when the D800's Print DR numbers are BETTER than the sensors full potential...its not quite like a star trek warp drive...you don't get 120% of maximum out of a 14-bit sensor.

I don't see how you can really gain anything from the act of downsampling.

All I'm saying is: take a black frame from your camera, load it up in IRIS, measure the stdev of pixels. Now downsample that file 4x or something; now measure the stdev of pixels. I just did for a black frame from my 5DIII, & here are my results:

Wow! So odd... I definitely question the DR formula...although it is interesting that you got 13.2 EV. I should have actually run that calculation myself to prove earlier points...that there is some biased skew between Canon Print DR results and Nikon Print DR results. Why is it that Nikon images gain so much more than Canon sensors when doing Print DR? Especially if Nikon images already contain a near-minimum noise floor and wouldn't logically seem to be able to benefit as much from normalization, where as Canon sensors still have some pattern noise forms at low ISO, and it would logically seem that they have MORE to gain, not less, from normalization.

Well, all I can say is yeah, the DR formula is fishy, and thats the key point I debate whenever these threads pop up. But I'm just a hater for saying so, and I personally don't care all that much about DxO results, so it doesn't really matter in the end anyway. ;P

Perhaps, but the major differences only seem to exist in normalized results. The two brands are a lot closer in performance when comparing native results...which makes me suspect that there may be some kind of software-level bias involved, rather than significant hardware-level differences. There is definitely a value to producing normalized results for consistency in comparison...but DxO is a bit of a black box. They expose some details and a little bit of math about their process, but there are also a lot of unknowns. Involving software in the process can affect results in a LOT of ways that could affect the objectivity of the final outcome. Who knows, for sure, exactly what their software actually does. Does it have any brand-specific optimizations that aren't publicized? If so, how are they skewing results?

The ironic thing here is that you can completely ignore the normalized results, and the native hardware results still indicate that Nikon and Sony sensors are technologically superior. Thats all someone really needs to say, and its not something that can really be (nor should be) disputed...but the Print DR results and funky S___ like "bonus points" are involved in the final "scores" that DxO gives to each camera. I find that to be fishy as well, and unnecessary. You don't need biased results to demonstrate that Sony Exmor based cameras offer superior IQ, and the actual meaningful differences between the best of the vest (D800) and the best of the competition (5D III or any one of the measured Digital MF cameras) are not really as big as DxO is making them out to be. Thats where my pet peeve lies...bias and skew when its unnecessary and not really honest or helpful to potential customers of any brand.

Nikon has also reportedly updated their firmware to first display a side by side comparison of the 5D3 and (formerly) D800 DxO marks for ten seconds before reviewing the photo. Owners have apparently demanded this feature as a reassurance that their photo does indeed look good before actually reviewing the photo.

Good stuff I heard that Nikon is also developing a 36-inch tablet that tethers wirelessly to the D800, I mean DxO 95. That way users can more easily see the astonishing detail in the snap shots of their dogs and fake floral arrangements.

My conspiracy theory:I wonder if DxO is purposely picking the 8MP downsize option to boost Nikon scores. All nikon cameras that receive great scores have all had multiples of 8MP as the sensor output resolution. The 16MP D7000, 16MP D4, and 36MP D800.

My conspiracy theory:I wonder if DxO is purposely picking the 8MP downsize option to boost Nikon scores. ... Notice the random Pentax K5 extremely awesome DR rating also contains a 16MP sensor. I also find it interesting that the $800 16MP Nikon D5100 has an equal DR to the Phase One...hmmmmmm. The Sony NEX-7 with its 24MP sensor (multiple of and the 24MP D3x and 24MP Sony A580 also have top spots to both $40,000 medium format cameras known their dynamic range and all Canon bodies.

Remarkably, that 'all Canon bodies' includes the 16 MP 1D IV. Another conspiracy theory shattered against the cold, hard rocks of reality.

DxOMark scores are like the US EPA's automobile fuel economy figures. I'm not going to base a car purchase decision on that particular number. I've never come close to the mpg figures I'm supposed to be getting with any car I've ever owned. The number says nothing about how fun the car is to drive, how comfortable the seats are, or whether a dresser can fit in the trunk. Still, it's a useful number to use as one factor, among many more important ones, in a decision.

About normalization: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

It's actually all of the other curves that are fishy . Ideally it WOULD be a straight line plot. It's read noise issues at certain stages of the read out that cause them to curve flat towards ISO100 for the non-exmor cameras.

Right, that's kind of what I meant... I stated it poorly. Now, don't you find it strange that the D4 also flattens at ISO 100? We're not supposed to believe it has worse read-out noise than the D800, are we?

Actually we are supposed to believe that the D4 has worse base ISO dynamic range than the D800 because it doesn't use any of the Exmor technology (and also more MP actually can tend to make it easier to get better read noise, but the main thing is the Exmore technology) so it was an expected result.

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As for the method for calculating DR from white/black frames... I just don't see that as an accurate method, b/c of complications potentially arising from the signal processing pipeline.

It's not accurate at all as to what the sensor itself captures, the Canon sensors are grabbing way more DR than we measure. But it's totally reasonable because it's not like we can magically beam the direct sensor capture onto our cards, the camera has to use read out electronics to read the signal and convert it to digital bits.

If you maybe meant more because how it may play around with things, it seems that most things have been touched up in any sort of unfair for the vast majority of cameras. Once you get in exposures more than a few seconds I think Nikon does, unfortunately, play with the RAW files a bit. Some say the 5D3 may play with the RAW a bit at 25,600 and above, not sure. I think for a few months one of the Sonys was playing with the RAW files. Mostly when people check there doesn't seem to be an issue though.

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For the basic dynamic range I think they just take their top blown out wedge (same as the white frame we talk about) and for then take a bottom wedge that contains the blackpoint (same as out lens cap on black frame) and then do the same thing we did

Yeah, I'm almost inclined to believe you, given that now my calculations this way from black/white frames of 5D2, 5D3, & D7000 suspiciously match DXO's numbers to almost a decimal point! Of course, if all these cameras religiously map white to that highest value on the white file & black to the mean of the pixels in the black file, with no other fancy signal processing in between, then maybe that's just a testament to DXOs testing protocol (if they actually base DR by imaging patches of a range of brightnesses).

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FYI I started doing some DR tests on my 5DIII using a Stouffer Transmission Wedge (T4110). I'm working on my methodology here, but the following method yielded 11.2 stops for DR:

At ISO 100:

Find longest shutter speed at f/11 that is just short of no longer capturing any detail between Step 1 (not enumerated on wedge) & Step 2 (shooting RAW, using any/all sorts of HR & exposure reduction to pull detail out of highlights... i.e. +1/3stop from this shutter speed & Step 2 now has same signal as blown-out white file)

Find shortest shutter speed where signal at Step 2 is ~12 (so, SNR of 2 if 5.9 is read noise, according to dark frame)

DR = log2(longest shutter speed/shortest shutter speed) = 11.2

Guess I could also do the above for SNR of 1 as the acceptable lower end.